As an airliner prepares to land, a bird takes off at the Gravelly Point park near Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va. on December 23, 2018. (Photo by Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

Steam comes out of the chimneys of the coal-fired power station Neurath near the Garzweiler open-cast coal mine in Luetzerath, Germany, Monday, October 25, 2021. The climate change conference COP26 will start next Sunday in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

Ary Borges feeds his tiger named Dan at his home in Maringa, Brazil, Thursday, September 26, 2013. Borges is in a legal battle with federal wildlife officials to keep his endangered animals from undergoing vasectomies and being taken away from him. He defends his right to breed the animals and says he gives them a better home than they might find elsewhere in Brazil. (Photo by Renata Brito/AP Photo)

As the world marks the International Day of the Girl Child, women's rights activists point to progress on a wide array of issues but say more needs to be done to protect girls from child marriage, sexual assault and other forms of exploitation. Here is a selection of pictures showing the daily lives of girls across the globe, all taken by female Associated Press photojournalists. Here: In this December 14, 2015, file photo, a young clown rides in the back of a car following a procession to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. Hundreds belonging to various clown associations made their annual pilgrimage to the Basilica to pay their respects to the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico's patron saint. (Photo by Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo)

In this November 2, 2018 photo, a voodoo believer who is supposed to be possessed with Gede spirit performs rituals near Baron Samedi's tomb during the annual Voodoo festival Fete Gede at Cite Soleil Cemetery in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. As a proof that they got into trance and their bodies got possessed by Gedes, they drink and wash their faces, their eyes and even their genitals with a mixture of raw rum and hot chili peppers that, according to believers, could burn the skin of any human alive. (Photo by Dieu Nalio Chery/AP Photo)

Chinese honor guards prepare for the arrival of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and China's President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Wednesday, June 14, 2023. (Photo by Jade Gao/Pool Photo via AP Photo)

Canadian fashion designers Dean and Dan Caten kiss Spanish supermodel Esther Canadas at the end of the Dsquared2 men's Spring Summer 2024 collection presented in Milan, Italy, Friday, June 16, 2023. (Photo by Luca Bruno/AP Photo)